Gallery Whispers

91

'Here you are, sergeant, this is the one you're looking for.' Neil Mcllhenney murmured his thanks to the hospital records clerk, a cheery little woman, and took the thick file from her.

Seating himself at a desk in the corner of the small office he looked at the green folder. Alongside 'Patient's Name', he saw 'Nicola Marston', and in the space marked 'Consultant', 'Mr Simmers'. The word 'Deceased' in heavy red lettering was stamped across the cover.

Staring at it, he shivered for a moment, before he opened the history and began to read.

He saw at once that the file was in reverse date order, for the first document was a note which read, 'Patient's death reported by police.

Postmortem shows death due to overdose of insulin.' The scrawled signature was only just legible. Mcllhenney read it aloud: 'D Simmers'.

The detective had not intended to read the history page by page, yet he was unable to stop himself. He pored over each entry from the top down with an eye which was no longer that of a total layman, making his way backwards through the course of Nicola Marston's illness, studying the notes in each stage of her treatment.

Although the regime was far from identical to that which Olive was undergoing, there were some similarities, most notably the concern of Deacey Simmers and his Registrar for the side effects of their therapy on the patient's blood. Before he was half-way though the file he found himself identifying with Nicola Marston, sitting by her side at each consultation, feeling her pain and distress as she struggled through the inevitable, violent sickness which followed each chemical transfusion, imagining her pleasure as he happened upon positive indicators from her scans and X-rays.

All the while that he read, he recognised the danger to himself of exposure to such a story, but he forced that consideration to one side.

This was not Olive, this was not Olive, he told himself. This was a woman who had given up.

Very few pages remained unread when he found the name. One that he had read in the police report on Anthony Murray: one that he knew.

He raced through the rest of the folder, closed it, then sat at the desk, his head in his hands, thinking hard. At last he nodded, a decision made: he took out his mobile phone and dialled Skinner's direct number.

'Yes,' came the snapped reply. The impatience in the normally steady voice took the sergeant by surprise. 'Boss?'

'Sorry, Neil,' said Skinner, at once. 'I've got something on my mind.'

'I won't keep you then, sir; but so have I. There's something in this report and I'd like to follow it up. To do that, I need to make one call, and I need to go and talk to someone.' He chuckled softly into the phone.

'I think I must have been working with you for too long, gaffer. I'm starting to get hunches!'